Interesting try, now me too creating self support modding for ue4 projects, ok will see this problem sure its can get solution too. "Unreal Engine 4.18 I'm not able to generate valid pak files", but its really strange...me producing pak's for 4.19 versions succes for my project....

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It is possible, but Epic's restriction on redistributing the editor makes it a non-starter.

You need to either have your game released through the Epic launcher with the editor, or you need to provide your modding SDK a source code, some assets, and the build artifacts from every release. I think mods need to be re-built for every release you do, too.

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It is possible, but Epic's restriction on redistributing the editor makes it a non-starter.

You need to either have your game released through the Epic launcher with the editor, or you need to provide your modding SDK a source code, some assets, and the build artifacts from every release. I think mods need to be re-built for every release you do, too.

So what is the process of getting your game on the Epic Games Launcher? Do we need to pay Epic Games? I'm guessing Epic Games has a lot of game companies asking them to put their game on the Epic Games launcher for modding, so there must some sort of filtering process, or formal application process. I don't see many games on the "modding" section either; looks like big game titles and not really any indie games.

Thanks dude for clarifying.

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So what is the process of getting your game on the Epic Games Launcher? Do we need to pay Epic Games? I'm guessing Epic Games has a lot of game companies asking them to put their game on the Epic Games launcher for modding, so there must some sort of filtering process, or formal application process. I don't see many games on the "modding" section either; looks like big game titles and not really any indie games.

Thanks dude for clarifying.

From what I've been told by Chance Ivey, it's a straight forward process with no extra costs. If you're making a mod editor you should send him a message aswell

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We've been working on mod support on our side here, and we're still trying to get modding to work.

On a basic level, I understand that mods are plugins, built as DLC on top of a base game. The resulting pak file is then placed into the GameName/Content/Paks/, which is then automatically loaded. I've done this, confirmed that the game loads the pak...

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Well, I've spent a week investigating modding support, and as far as I'm concerned, there currently isn't any.

4.19 has an obvious breaking bug - it can't build DLC. So modding is entirely impossible on that version, unless you fix a regression in the engine code yourself.

4.20 doesn't have that bug, but despite dozens of hours of work, I've never been able to detect mod content from a mod pak, despite trying many different methods.
- The asset registry works perfectly fine for the base pak, but won't detect content loaded using OnMountPak().
- The same issue happens if you let the engine load a mod pak from next to the default pak (which is not a practical method with Steamworks, anyway).
- Loading assets manually with LoadSynchronous() won't find mod assets.

I've confirmed that the basics of reading a pak file still work - I can dump the contents of my mod file and check that the assets are there. It all appears good and consistent. Actually making use of these, as of 4.20, appears impossible.

I'd love to be proven wrong, but I'd advise going with a different engine if modding is required.

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Well, I've spent a week investigating modding support, and as far as I'm concerned, there currently isn't any.

4.19 has an obvious breaking bug - it can't build DLC. So modding is entirely impossible on that version, unless you fix a regression in the engine code yourself.

4.20 doesn't have that bug, but despite dozens of hours of work, I've never been able to detect mod content from a mod pak, despite trying many different methods.
- The asset registry works perfectly fine for the base pak, but won't detect content loaded using OnMountPak().
- The same issue happens if you let the engine load a mod pak from next to the default pak (which is not a practical method with Steamworks, anyway).
- Loading assets manually with LoadSynchronous() won't find mod assets.

I've confirmed that the basics of reading a pak file still work - I can dump the contents of my mod file and check that the assets are there. It all appears good and consistent. Actually making use of these, as of 4.20, appears impossible.

I'd love to be proven wrong, but I'd advise going with a different engine if modding is required.

I believe you must still manually merge the asset registries of each pak file when loaded, similar to how it is described here. It was stated to be added to a future release over a year ago but doesn't look like it ever made it in. It seems after investigating modding support again before we move into 4.22, it's still barely supported natively and requires lots of custom code to get functioning, on top of the legal barriers mentioned in this thread related to distribution.

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It is possible, but Epic's restriction on redistributing the editor makes it a non-starter.

You need to either have your game released through the Epic launcher with the editor, or you need to provide your modding SDK a source code, some assets, and the build artifacts from every release. I think mods need to be re-built for every release you do, too.

Why is the Editor required for Modding? Would it not just be adding prefab Media and Code modules?

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Well, I've spent a week investigating modding support, and as far as I'm concerned, there currently isn't any.

4.19 has an obvious breaking bug - it can't build DLC. So modding is entirely impossible on that version, unless you fix a regression in the engine code yourself.

4.20 doesn't have that bug, but despite dozens of hours of work, I've never been able to detect mod content from a mod pak, despite trying many different methods.
- The asset registry works perfectly fine for the base pak, but won't detect content loaded using OnMountPak().
- The same issue happens if you let the engine load a mod pak from next to the default pak (which is not a practical method with Steamworks, anyway).
- Loading assets manually with LoadSynchronous() won't find mod assets.

I've confirmed that the basics of reading a pak file still work - I can dump the contents of my mod file and check that the assets are there. It all appears good and consistent. Actually making use of these, as of 4.20, appears impossible.

I'd love to be proven wrong, but I'd advise going with a different engine if modding is required.

I see you released the modding editor for Elium Rain, how you solved your problems?

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We've found that manual mounting doesn't work, and mounting mods outside /gamename/Mods in the packaged game doesn't work, so we've made a lightweight launcher that synchronizes the Steam mod folder with that specific folder.